


Wishbone

by SandrC



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Each of them expresses love in their own way, Family Bonding, Gen, Hector is a mess, bless this poor boy, my spanish is shit sorry, theyre hella fun, this just in: i love writing oscar and filipe, you cannot convince me that Coco doesn't have a sense of humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 09:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: He's been pulled apart too many times to pretend it hasn't happened. They haven't seen him do it to himself.





	Wishbone

**Author's Note:**

> ONESHOT! ONESHOT! ONESHOT!
> 
> (I should be asleep...)
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! :D
> 
> (Please correct my mistakes in Spanish. I don't even speak it conversationally...just enough to cry when I watched Coco and to communicate with customers in my retail jobs.)
> 
> EDIT: Big thanks to Ana, who provided some help with my Spanish. You're the real hero! Whoooop!!!

**I.**

When he first arrived in the Land of the Dead, Héctor Rivera found the strange disconnect between his brain and his now-skeleton form disconcerting. It was hard to reconcile the feeling of moving joints and muscles and gurgling guts with clacking bones. Still, after _cien años_ of being dead, you get accustomed to those sort of disparities. So it is with an amusing amount of surprise that Héctor came to the realization that the Remembered Dead don't just toss themselves around willy-nilly.

He was working on returning the confiscated dress back to Cici at the time, Julio having helped convince the border guard that it was all good. ( _No hay problema, señor. No, no es mentira señor._ Just getting back my family's outfit. _Gracias. Muchas gracias. Buenas noches señor!_ ) Per usual, Héctor popped his arm out of its socket and pulled it back against his suspenders. Sure of his aim, he let it fly and excitedly waved at Cici when she let down the fire escape and tossed it back to him.

"¡Héctor! If you've come crawling back for a favor again I will turn you to _gelatina, ¡por Dios!"_ When his arm was back where it belonged, Héctor turned to see Julio staring at him.

" _¿Qué? ¿Qué pasa?_ Something on my face?"

Julio shook his head slowly. "Wh—why did you _do_ that?!"

" _Mm_?"

"Launch your _arm_ like that! You could've missed and thrown it off the edge or-or you might've shattered it against _la puerta_ or even destroyed the hinge joint of your elbow!" Despite never knowing Julio in life, Héctor made an afterlife out of knowing _people_ and Julio was an open book. Right now, for instance, the feeling he most gave off was—

— _concern_?

Héctor's brow furrowed and he beckoned his son-in-law to follow him up the stairs before Cici decided to close the window again. " _Pues...no sé_. You do that kinda stuff often enough and you just...don't _care_ any more?" His shoulder blades met awkwardly beneath his tattered vest and he chuckled his way into a less apprehensive stage persona. "Guess the Remembered Dead worry more about themselves than the Forgotten do, _eh_?"

The sharp intake of breath from Julio was enough of a confirmation that he didn't take Héctor's words as the joke they were meant to be. Something in him ached.

He buried it deep.

* * *

 

**II.**

Óscar and Filipe were oddballs, even in life. They always saw the world around them in new and unique ways—a fact that Imelda attributed to their being twins—so he figured they'd probably have the least amount of issue with his throwing himself around.

He was, as he often found out, _very_ wrong.

" _¡Cuñado!_ " Óscar rushed to the edge of the bridge to Shantytown.

" _¿Te duele?_ " Filipe followed, his own worried face looking down as Héctor reassembled himself with practiced ease.

" _No_? What kind of question is that?!" Héctor dusted his pants off while he waited for his twin brothers-in-law to hurry down the stairs. He didn't expect them to begin tediously inspecting his every bone with prodding fingers and wry eyes.

"You could have misplaced a metacarpal—"

"—or a phalange—"

"—fractured your tibia—"

"—snapped a rib—"

"—or even dented your skull," they finished in unison. Héctor swatted them away, open palms and closed face. His anxiety bubbled deep within him.

"I'm fine, _see_? Good as new." He rapped his hand on his skull and winced when it knocked an incisor out. Sheepishly placing it back in its spot, he shrugged. " _Más o menos..._ "

"Just don't do that again!" Filipe scolded.

"You _worried_ us!" Óscar added. They sounded eerily like Imelda.

"I'll do my best." His words were platitudes but they accepted them. They entered Shantytown to retrieve Héctor's meager possessions.

He tried not to think about the last person he saw wearing that worried look.

* * *

 

**III.**

Victoria, Héctor learned, was the worst of Imelda and the best of _herself_. She was stubborn and fierce and bright and loyal. She also had _una voz de ángel_...even if it was husky from surviving cholera.

Another thing Victoria inherited from Imelda was her dogged pursuit of anything she desired. That's how he found himself with her at his back before he was about to chuck his skull into a warehouse. That's also how he almost got his skull punted into an open window by the best pair of heels he'd ever seen.

" _¡Ay!_ " The _gritó_ that squeaked out surprised even Héctor when he turned to see his stoic granddaughter behind him. "Don't _do_ that! You almost started my heart up!"

Victoria looked unimpressed—which would've deterred all but Héctor, who pursued Imelda for a year before she accepted his proposal. " _A ver ¿Qué es eso?_ "

"Hhh—what do you mean _¿qué es eso? ¡Nada mija! No es nada!_." He placed his head back on his neck and wrung his shirt out of habit.

She raised a brow. That was an Imelda power play for sure. " _¿Nada?_ Removing your head to throw it into a window is _nothing_?!"

"Ehh... _escúchame, mija_. I just needed to talk to Sr. Mentido and his home is on the other side of town so I—" Héctor found his excuse trailing off into groaning under her scrutiny. _¡Ay Dios!_ He really _was_ a fool. "That was a _lie_. I apologize for that." Old habits and all that.

" _Look_ ," Victoria began, her heels snapping against the cobblestones as she circled Héctor, " _A mi no me importa su salud,_ but my _abuela_ worries. So does Julio, Rosita, Óscar, and Filipe. They may not know how to get it through your thick skull—or, in Mamá Imelda's case, want to _try_ to right now—but they _worry_. So maybe don't go throwing yourself around like you're worthless?" Héctor nodded weakly.

If he could, he'd be sweating.

"Besides," Victoria continued, bringing her loop around the front door of the warehouse, "Sr. Mentido leaves the key under this brick." With a soft kick, she removed a brick from the façade and tossed it at Héctor, who fumbled it. "Just don't get caught _¿esta bien?_ That way I have plausible deniability."

He could barely stammer out a quiet " _gracias_ " before she disappeared back into the nighttime shadows of the Land of the Dead. His thumbs traced the grooves of the fake brick absently. His mind went over the encounter frame by frame. Beat by beat.

They worried.

That thought hurt far less than it used to.

* * *

 

**IV.**

Héctor was always careful around Rosita. It wasn't that he thought she was fragile—far from it! Any relative of his Imelda, with that blazing temper she had, was strong and hearty, no doubt about it! But still, his apprehension was clear. Rosita bothered him in a way he couldn't put his finger on.

When she found him swapping one of his femurs out for a humerus to relieve stress on a fracture, he expected the confusion that Julio had shown or the concern of Óscar and Filipe or even the disdain of Victoria. Instead, when he froze, eyes locked with hers, he found... _something else_.

She sat down next to him, her skirt bunched around her waist, and held out her hand. " _Dámelo, por favor._ " Héctor automatically handed the bone and barely registered her sympathetic clucking. "Papá Héctor...you've seen a _lot_ , haven't you?"

" _Very_ well traveled." A weak joke. She knew it but didn't glance up from her examination. He watched her carefully scrutinize his femur— _actually_ Chícharon's, but that was beside the point—with more apprehension than he thought his feeble ribcage could contain.

The silence was a monster. Devouring. _Consuming_. He swallowed the urge to fight it with idle chatter. Rosita was too close and too similar to something or _someone_ for comfort.

"Have you tried to explain it?" Rosita's question was jarring. Héctor snapped to look at her but she hadn't seemed to move, her mouth drawn in a soft and absent smile. " _¿Tu dolor?_ They'd listen if you did."

"I just—" the lie wouldn't even come. She was too earnest.

"Even if you _are_ afraid, I doubt they'd hate you. Everyone walks a different path and that's why they all need different _shoes_. That's why we are here. We provide _un servicio importante_. And all you have to do is explain." With a soft exclamation of pride, she handed back his femur. " _There_ we go!"

Héctor looked down at the bone in his hands and marveled at the cream-colored lacquer that Rosita had used to fill the crack that was giving him hell. "...thanks..."

"No problem, Papá Héctor. It's rubber-based so the heat shouldn't cause you much stress!" Rosita stood up and dusted off her apron as Héctor took her appearance in with all of him.

He was so lucky. So full of love.

She reminded him of Coco.

* * *

 

**V.**

Coco was _home_. This was both amazing and saddening news. Their own Socorro Rivera—daughter, mother, sister, niece—was finally home with her family. She could finally see everyone she missed in the Land of the Living.

On their way to the Department of Family Relations, Héctor drew a deep breath he didn't need. Rosita gently patted his shoulder and gave him a soft, reassuring smile. "It'll be _fine_ ," she promised.

"I _know_ but—"

Julio cut off his protest, trotting in front of him and turning so his head was facing back at his Papá Héctor. "¡No! If I can be happy to meet _mi amado_  after all this time, you can be happy too!"

"Of course she _could_ not recognize you—" Filipe noted.

"—or _us_ —"

"—she might not know where she is—"

"—she might not know _who_ she is—"

"—besides, _who knows_?" Óscar shrugged.

"Memory is a fickle thing!" Filipe finished. It did Héctor very little good to hear their natural back-and-forth joking but an attempt was made. Victoria nodded at Héctor, silent, like he needed. She was wringing her hands and he could see her anxiety as clear as his own, even if she tried to hide it.

It was Imelda who finally got to him, quelling his nerves. " _¡Cálmate!_ Don't worry so much Héctor! Coco remembered you," she added, "so she surely _loves_ you. Miguel said as much."

" _Plus_ ," Julio added, "I can remember _at least_ four different times she got in trouble for loving to dance _so_ —"

" _Before_ or _after_ Elena and Victoria were born?" Rosita asked.

" _¡Sí!_ " The twins chorused and everyone rattled with laughter. Even Héctor, who had only heard these tales secondhand, knew the joy behind her longing.

And so, worry pushed lower and lower in his guts, Héctor stood straight and firm. He was going to see his Coco again.

He was going to see her and hold her and shower her in kisses.

When all he saw was her head, however, he shrieked and moaned. " _¡Ay, mija! ¿Qué te pasó?! Tu cabeza, pobrecita. Ay...lo siento mi Coco precioso...mi angelito...lo siento tonto..._ "

A peal of laughter snapped him out of his wailing. It burned as fire in his marrow and he _knew_ this laugh. He'd _heard_ this laugh. He remembered this laugh for almost a century.

"Papá! _¡Tu cara!_ I got you _good_!" In his hands, Coco's head clattered about with glee.

" _¡Mija!_ " His tone was warning but the joyous tears tracking down his cheeks were enough proof that he wasn't mad. He let her head roll out of his hand and into her grasp. His Coco, who had been hiding behind a large saguaro, fit her head back on and gave her family a toothless grin.

" _Los amo_ ," Coco exclaimed in a voice that hadn't been this strong last time Julio heard her. They all wept.

" _Nosotros tambien, mija_ ," Héctor replied as the entire Rivera clan swept up their beloved Coco in a gigantic hug. " _Nosotros tambien..._ "

The pain, a dull ache, feels less now. It's a warm glow with a sharp spark of cold in his marrow. He is loved.

And he feels whole.


End file.
